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AbstractThis paper uses the fiscal response framework to study the effects of aid flows on key fiscal aggregates in Senegal, over the period of 1970–2000. Attention is given to the interplay between aid and debt. The paper contributes to the empirics of fiscal response modelling by deriving the standard errors and p values associated with the different mechanisms of the structural and reduced form equations. The main findings in this paper are: (i) relatively large shares of government resources are used to finance debt servicing; (ii) the impact of aid flows on domestic expenditure is statistically insignificant and (iii) debt servicing has a significant negative effect on domestic expenditure. The main policy implication of this study is that debt reduction could be a more effective policy tool than additional aid (loans) in financing pro‐poverty expenditure as well as public investment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The paper develops a model of public fiscal behaviour of the aid-recipient government in the presence of both endogenous and heterogeneous foreign aid. We endogenize aid on the grounds that the recipient government has some influence over aid disbursements. Regarding aid heterogeneity, it is argued that each of the main four categories of aid, namely project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid may exert different effects on the recipient economy. Furthermore, in case the preferences of the aid-recipient government are higher for some of these types of aid, neglecting aid heterogeneity would lead to aggregation bias in the results and conclusions. The model adds an important new dimension to the vast aid effectiveness literature and calls for further modelling as well as empirical work in this promising research area so that significant policy implications can be derived.

This paper examines the impact of foreign aid on public sector fiscal behaviour in Côte d'Ivoire. A special interest is the relationship between aid, debt servicing and debt, given that Côte d'Ivoire is a highly indebted country. The theoretical model employed differs from those of previous studies by highlighting the interaction between debt servicing and the other fiscal variables. This model is estimated using 1975-99 time series data. Key findings are that the bulk of aid is allocated to debt servicing and that aid is associated with increases in the level of public debt.

Economists typically evaluate policies based on how such policies affect individuals' utilities. We follow this approach by taking a welfarist view of the USA's espoused policy of promoting liberty in other parts of the world. However, we take a nuanced view by investigating the type of welfare that the USA promotes. On one hand, we identify a direct value of liberty in the sense that basic human rights like freedom of speech, freedom to express one's religious beliefs, and freedom to form associations improve welfare. In this case, liberty is directly consumed. We argue that this improvement in welfare comes simply from giving people greater levels of freedom and is independent of the existence of other inputs. On the other hand, we identify an indirect value of liberty because liberty is indirectly consumed insofar as it is an input in an economy's production function and therefore affects welfare through its effect on an economy's capacity to produce goods and services. However, unlike the direct effect mentioned above, we argue that liberty alone cannot produce this indirect effect and therefore needs complementary inputs like investments in physical and human capital. We identify foreign aid as a source of information for investigating a donor's direct and indirect values of liberty. In our empirical work, our identification strategy exploits the aforementioned difference in the characteristics of the direct and indirect values of liberty to test whether the USA's foreign aid allocation is motivated by a direct value or and/or an indirect value for liberty. As a test of validity, we apply our methodology to the aid allocation of donors who, we believe, are different from the USA. These are Arab donors and Scandinavian countries (i.e., Sweden, Norway, and Denmark). We also include the UK.

The paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of a donor's choice of the composition of unrestricted and in-kind/restricted transfers to a recipient and how this composition is adjusted in response to changes in the moral hazard behavior of the recipient. In-kind or restricted transfers may be used, among others, to control a recipient's moral hazard behavior but may be associated with deadweight losses. Within the context of foreign aid, we use a canonical political agency model to construct a simple signaling game between a possibly corrupt politician in a recipient country and a donor to illustrate the donor's optimal choice of tied (restricted) and untied foreign aid. We clarify the condition under which a reduction in the recipient's moral hazard behavior (i.e., improvement in the level of governance) leads to a fall in the proportion of tied aid. We test the predictions of our theoretical analysis using data on the composition of foreign aid by multilateral and bilateral donors.

The paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of a donor's choice of the composition of unrestricted and in-kind/restricted transfers to a recipient and how this composition is adjusted in response to changes in the moral hazard behavior of the recipient. In-kind or restricted transfers may be used, among others, to control a recipient's moral hazard behavior but may be associated with deadweight losses. Within the context of foreign aid, we use a canonical political agency model to construct a simple signaling game between a possibly corrupt politician in a recipient country and a donor to illustrate the donor's optimal choice of tied (restricted) and untied foreign aid. We clarify the condition under which a reduction in the recipient's moral hazard behavior (i.e., improvement in the level of governance) leads to a fall in the proportion of tied aid. We test the predictions of our theoretical analysis using data on the composition of foreign aid by multilateral and bilateral donors.

AbstractRecently a number of multi-country insurance schemes have been introduced to deal with short-term fiscal liquidity gaps after natural disasters. However, little is known about the actual underlying risk to the fiscal sector just after such events. In this paper, we estimate the risk of fiscal shortages due to tropical storms in the Caribbean. To this end, first we use a panel VAR and estimate that while government expenditure does not respond to damages due to tropical storms, there is a significant contemporaneous effect on fiscal revenue. The results also reveal that different components of expenditure and revenue respond differently to hurricane shocks. Then, employing a parametric bulk extreme value model on estimated losses due to historical events, we show that the fiscal shortage due to storms can potentially be sizeable depending on the rarity of the event, but varies considerably across islands. However, any risk assessment is fraught with considerable uncertainty, particularly for rare but potentially very damaging tropical storm strikes.